parents

Children who are not encouraged to do, to try, to explore, to master, and to risk failure, often feel helpless and inadequate. Over-controlled by anxious, fearful parents, these children often become anxious and fearful themselves. This makes it difficult for them to mature. Many never outgrow the need for ongoing parental guidance and control. As a result, their parents continue to invade, manipulate, and frequently dominate their lives.

Dads. Do you honestly expect anybody to believe that you can__ find 20 minutes to step away from your computer or turn off the television to play with your child? It has to happen every single day. Do you not understand that children will hinge their entire facet of trust on whether or not their dad plays with them and how involved he is when he plays with them? Do you know the damage you do by not playing with your children every day?

Do we not see the influence we have when we say we believe in one thing, but our children see us living something else? Do we not realize how little we encourage our children to actually decide what they believe, declare what they believe, and then live by it? Whether it__ religion, politics, sports, or societal norms. It is not our place to tell our kids what to think. It is our place to teach our kids to think correctly. If we do this, we need have no fear of what they will decide for themselves and how strongly they__l stand behind it. A man will follow his own convictions to his death, but he__l only follow another man__ convictions until he steps in manure.

One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is the empowerment to create a life they love, filled with purposeful, enjoyable work, and relationships they hold dear.

Judith Rey watches the young woman. Once upon a time, I had a baby daughter. I dressed her in frilly frocks, enrolled her for ballet classes, and sent her to horse-riding camp five summers in a row. But look at her. She turned into Lester anyway. She kisses Luisa__ forehead. Luisa frowns, suspiciously, like a teenager. __hat?

Dads. Do you not realize that your child needs to feel your skin on his? Do you not realize the incredible and powerful bond that skin on skin contact with your daughter will give you? Do you not understand the permanent mental connections that are made when you stroke your son__ bare back or rub your daughter__ bare tummy while you tell bedtime stories? And if any idiot says anything about that being inappropriate, you__e gonna get kicked in the face, first by me, and then by every other good dad out there. Touching your child is your duty as a father.

Good parents use the mistakes they did in the past when they were young to advice the children God gave to them to prevent them from repeating those mistakes again. However, bad parents always want to be seen as right and appear "angelic and saintly" as if they never had horrible youth days.

Being a 'good' parent is more about the parent, and, less about the 'supposedly-could-have-been-bad' child.

But wasn't there some sort of rule that said parents had to be smarter than their kids? It didn't seem fair.

When parents neglect their responsibility to correct and discipline their children society suffers. The results are crimes and harm committed against others.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm nothing more than the sum of who [my parents] were. Even worse, I worry that I don't add up nearly so well, that I'm just a shadowed reflection of them. Now that question hounds me a lot more often than I like to admit.

And most of the failures in parent-child relationships, from my observation, begin when the child begins to acquire a mind and a will of its own, to make independent decisions and to question the omnipotence or the wisdom of the parent.

Parents don't know their children at all.No one knows anyone, in fact.

The best security blanket a child can have is parents who respect each other.

No matter what the delusions are, parents do not really know their children

What is much harder to handle is the sense that you have to live up to the mark someone else has set for you. The grades become too important, the competition too frantic, the fear of disappointing those who believe in you turns into an overwhelming nightmare. And it is desperately unfair to the boy. He cannot live his parents' life over again for them. He cannot make up for their own lacks, their own unfulfillments. He cannot carry their torch -- only his own.

And if you are a mom who has watched your child__ father leave, my heart goes out to you. I also pray that you had no part in it. I pray that you didn__ make it impossible for him while he was there. I pray that you didn__ try and force him to live up to impossible expectations. And, I pray that if he is a good man and he wants to be there in his child__ life that you love your child enough to let him. Even if that seems impossible to you.

Genuine love for a child, it seems to me, must include a desire for his maturity and ultimately his independence. WAtching a personality unfold is perhaps the deepest pleasure of parenthood; wishing, or trying, to retard this growth is one of the deepest sins.